The international community should face up to the Chinese authorities’ suppression of thought, speech and press
According to media reports, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Secretary- General Robert Menard recently made an official visit to Beijing as representative of RSF. During the visit, he requested that the Chinese authorities allow RSF to establish an office in Beijing. In December 2006, moreover, China's State Council announced in an “Order of the State Council” that restrictions on news coverage in China by foreign reporters would be relaxed from January 1, 2007, to October 17, 2008, for the preparations and holding of the Beijing Olympic Games. Apparently, the Chinese authorities have been attempting recently, on the one hand, to repair relations with international human rights organizations and groups, and on the other hand, to improve China’s image by intentionally creating the false impression that the Chinese people enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
In fact, however, the Chinese authorities have not eased their suppression of the press and speech in recent years. Indeed, they have steadily stepped up such suppression. There have been innumerable reports of cases regarding the various types of repression and persecution carried out by the Chinese authorities. Since 2004, several major cases have attracted particularly close attention. These have included the expelling of Cheng Yizhong, former editor-in-chief of the Guangzhou-based Southern Metropolitan Daily, from the Communist Party on charges of “corruption” after he exposed the SARS epidemic; the forced closure of the 21st Century World Report for publishing sensitive articles; the replacement of Beijing News editor-in-chief Yang Bin after the paper revealed corruption; the death by police beating of Wu Xianghu, deputy editor of the Taizhou Evening News, because of his reporting; Li Datong, managing editor of Freezing Point, was fired; and the severe punishment of foreign press reporters Zhao Yan and Cheng Xiang on the charge of divulging state secrets. Furthermore, the Chinese authorities have drafted the “Measures for Administering the Release of News and Information in China by Foreign News Agencies” and other regulations that seriously restrict the free reporting of news information and the rights of the Chinese people to know.
The Chinese authorities have also strengthened controls on freedom of the press. In 2004, they banned Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao’s book The Survey of Farmers in China, which exposed the true state of rural development in China. Since then, Yan Liangke's novel Serving the People and Zhang Qingzhou's report Record of the Tangshan Warning were banned for their veiled criticism of China's bureaucracy and ideology or exposure of facts that the authorities wanted to hide. Recently, China's General Administration of Press and Publication banned eight books, including Zhang Yihe's new book Past Histories of Peking Opera Stars, for “content that crossed the line.” The move has shocked the global overseas Chinese community and sparked widespread expression of strong support for the banned authors. Zhang Yihe was imprisoned from 1968 to 1978 as part of a 20-year sentence on charges of “counterrevolutionary actions.” The ruling was reversed and she was released in 1979. Past Histories of Peking Opera Stars was the third successive book by Zhang to be banned by the Chinese authorities. Although the author has long been suppressed by the Communist Party of China (CPC), she continues to bravely defend her right to speak. The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) deeply respects this and expresses support on behalf of the Taiwanese government. The MAC also severely denounces the Chinese government for suppressing the basic human rights of freedom of speech through purges, shut outs, and other brutal methods.
Since 2006, the Chinese authorities have rapidly escalated their suppression of human rights activists in China. This is evident in the cases involving Shanghai lawyer Zheng Enchong, Beijing lawyer Gao Zhisheng, Guangzhou lawyer Guo Feixiong, Hebei lawyer Guo Qizhen, Taizhou lawyer Yan Zhengxue, and Shandong lawyer Chen Guangcheng, who, respectively, have been imprisoned and monitored, prosecuted, sentenced and even treated with severe violence. The Chinese authorities have also placed these human rights activists under close surveillance and obstructed their opportunities for media interviews and contacts so as to prevent Chinese intellectuals from learning about human rights activities.
Due to the fact that the Chinese authorities have made unlimited groundless generalizations aimed at tightening internal control over the freedoms of thought, speech and press based on their entrenched ideological mindset, we urge that the international community should face up to the situation and jointly demand that the Chinese authorities immediately make improvements in this regard. As a member of the alliance of democratic values, Taiwan naturally is willing, in cooperation with the international community, to contribute its mental and physical efforts to enable the broadest masses of the Chinese people to enjoy the same freedom, democracy and human rights that are enjoyed by the Taiwanese people.
The MAC will continue to collect and arrange information on specific cases and the situation of human rights violations by the Chinese authorities. Such information will be regularly updated on the MAC website (please refer to the new “China's Human Rights Violations” section on the home page of the MAC website) to serve as a reference for people across all sectors of society and to enhance their concrete understanding of the human rights situation in China.